


Focusing

by Cremebrulee



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Major Endgame Spoilers, Spoilers, brief noctis, bros being bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cremebrulee/pseuds/Cremebrulee
Summary: Prompto is having issues taking pictures for his friend. The boys help out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble-story thing I couldn't get out of my head. Sorry for any spelling/grammar issues. This game destroyed me.

Without fail, he visits his friend once a month on the anniversary of the day the dawn broke. There were days when rain crashed down from the sky, hitting his skin like tiny needles. There were days when it everything was blanketed with snow and the temperature dropped so far he thought his fingers would freeze off before he could open the car door. On those days, he’d mutter his complaints to any spirit that would listen. In summer, the hot sun would tinge his skin red and that was the only time he would quit complaining. No, he’d never complain about the sun again.  

The spirits know he doesn’t mean it, Prompto is sure. Especially one. The one he knows is listening. The one he sees lazily resting his weight on one leg, hands on both his hips and offering up words that sound sympathetic, but the sarcasm below the surface belies its true meaning.

There was no royal tomb for Noctis. Ignis made sure of it. Noctis, their king, who never wanted the role, but wore it with pride. It was ironic that the king of kings didn’t have a tomb to call his own, Prompto had mused to his friend. There would never be another Lucian king to draw out power from his ancestors, never another reason to sacrifice their own for the sake of a crystal. It was just the people now, as far as he could see, though sometimes Prompto finds flickers of black hair in his images. It makes his breath stop and whenever he zooms in, he’s hopeful. Sometimes it’s Gentianna, sometimes people caught walking off camera. It seems Ignis is always near when it happens. Hears the hitch in his throat. Months ago, he used to ask what’s wrong. Now he knows it’s just hopeful bewilderment. Someone looking for his best friend.

Ignis, who assumed his natural role as advisor, buried their king in an unmarked location only the closest to him could reach unaided. A place where Noctis could truly find peace, by the unmarked side of Lunafreya. The original plan for Lunafreya, Prompto had learned, was a memorial. Before the wars, the demons, the darkness, there was a beautiful marker for her so people could relish in her memory. The years had torn away the stone, demons killing the few that seemed to remember the location and those that forget simply moved on, no longer stilled by the voice of a dead oracle.

Ignis had found out the location early in their ten years of darkness. It was an innate curiosity that caused him to ask around. Surely, it was something Noctis would want to know in their return. None of them had expected to go there with him, accompanied by his wordless body. There were plans of camping along the way, picking flowers for her memory and joking about the king being sulky. None of them wanted to go that way. They had walked in silence together and they had left in that same silence, accompanied by a night that seemed too dark.

“Why?” Prompto remembered asking, shocked that their friend would be placed so far away, unmarked and unnoticed.

“It’s peaceful now,” Ignis had responded “but the world is new again. Uncertainty is rife. Knowing a king is buried may be a temptation some can’t pass up. And besides that-“

Prompto watched Ignis press the glasses up the bridge of his nose, fingers torn up from helping the restoration around the city. He tried to remind himself to get him salve, but he can’t remember whether he brought it or not. “His Majesty was never a fan of fanfare, if you will. He will never be forgotten, but statues and grand tombs would not be to his liking”

It’s why Ignis walked tall in his role. With the knowledge of the future and Prompto still living through his past photographs. For the people’s outspoken cries and confusion about a lost prince they didn’t know to be king, a memorial had been placed in the main chamber. Word had passed quickly the king had died to bore the sun. Some offered prayer, others offered gifts. Prompto was sure he saw Cactura set down a plate of Tenebrae desert once. He wanted to speak to her, comfort anyone, talk to anyone that knew Noctis and could remember. Once, he tried to walk in. To say something, to speak, to show his respects alongside her, but it was more than he could bare. The sunlit walls did nothing to shake the looming oppression. They did nothing but highlight the tearstained faces of old acquaintances and movements from shuddering shoulders.

It was too hard to watch so he never stayed.

The first times he visits, he shows his king familiarity. Pictures of the dawn, Cid looking into the morning sky, Talcott watching the cactars sway on the dashboard. The face of a nameless child who finally gets to be one and can grow up without the battle scars his friends and family wore. He shows Iris’ smile as she speaks to the Lestallum citizens and Gladio behind her, beaming and arms crossed. He asked Cindy for a picture this time. The fires of Ifrit had emboldened him to braver than he ever knew. She had gladly agreed, holding a wrench in her hand with a beaming wide smile in front of cars. Takka had even allowed an image, awkwardly holding his last plate of catoblepas steak with a nervous smile.

As time wore on and the effects of war lifted from the world, he started to show landscapes. Imperial bases being renovated and repurposed as businesses and homes. He shows how lighting is used for aesthetic purposes in Galdin Quay and no longer meant to drive away monsters. He snaps pictures of landmarks and havens. Lakes and rocks. In the dawn, everything looked beautiful and he wanted Noctis to see it all with his own eyes. The fruits of his sacrifice for the new world he created.

When he comes back to Crown City, keyed up to take the best images of his life, he falters for the first time in over a year. He has walked through the Crown City banner more times than he can remember and yet, when he tries to take a picture, he can’t push the button. He tries to set it to auto, 10 seconds away, and immediately deletes it. It’s a trend that follows him the next few days around the city landscape. Press, review, delete. Delete. Delete.

When he skips a month, it wears on him. Ignis points it out first and hearing it aloud brings Prompto’s frustration to the surface. Prompto’s routine had been solid for a year. It was unlike him and ever so observant, Ignis had noticed. It was ignored at first. He made up excuses. “Bad lighting” was his favorite lately. The humor not lost on Ignis or Gladiolus, who would shake their head from the morbid joke.

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to talk to the king about that,” Ignis had responded one afternoon, earning a hollow laugh. It was chocked. Forced. It hurt to even make that noise and felt his lips tear from dryness.

“How can I do this?” Ignis wasn’t even looking in his direction, but Prompto could feel a burning gaze on him as he finally spoke up. His discouraged voice unable to hide anything. “How can I show him? What does he want to see? Every picture I take, Crown City just…He’s not here. It’s not the same.”

And he paused, snapping his eyes shut.  No beat was missed and Ignis’ hand was on his camera, pulling it away before his eyes could fully open.  

“I may have a solution.”

Ignis always did.

They spent the next month together, Gladio arriving just in time to hear the click of Prompto’s camera and taking the opportunity to do a pose in front of his rusted up truck. Together, it seemed easier to find the right focus in the lens, keep the lighting in check and ensuring the subject was center.

All three of them, side by side, stood in front of the newly painted ‘Welcome to Crown City’ sign. They snapped shots in courtyards and apartments. Their old high school, with kids walking inside to start their first day back in many years. They argued over which foot stall to photograph and opted for all of them in the end, each standing in front of their favorite and all three next to the street vender who never seemed to run out of free skewers.

In a matter of days, they had traversed the city. Houses and trees. Cats and dogs. A chocobo that had found his way inside and ambled around being fed by every person it came across. He snaps pictures of Gladio in front of parks, Ignis outside of managerial buildings and taking selfies near any inane item he comes across.

Standing in front of the castle, the memorial, was hard. All three had done it, nervous alone when Prompto was fixing the tripod, but somehow with a renewed comfort when they stood together. Their attire was casual, almost reminiscent of the days they spent before the war. They wanted to show Noctis there was no need for uniforms. Not in this new world.

“Wow, did you blink Gladio? Really? After how hard that shot was to set up?”

“Well you took too long to get over here.”

“I have to adjust the camera! You’re too big and they come out bad.” He makes it a point to zoom out the lens with an exaggerated sigh “And then it works aaaaaaand you blink.”

“Yeah, like it’s so hard for you delete that stuff. You kept, what, five back then?”

“Hey! They weren’t good! Dude, I had limited space on the road.”

The banter made Ignis purse his lips and pinch the space between his eyes. Silent the whole time, he made himself known with the exasperated sigh.

“Are you all quite done?”

Their arrival to the duel placed grave markers coincided with dawn. It may have been planned by Ignis, who had awaken earlier than normal to drink his ebony, but Prompto and Gladiolus thought it a remarkable coincidence.

There were no other graves near the late king and princess and the silence was deafening.  Prompto had come here many times, but the introduction was never easy. Another reminder that Noctis couldn’t truly see. Another memory to push away.

“You, uh, think he’s up? Here with us now?” Prompto edged away, from company to grave markers, looking around as if an ethereal being would suddenly appear to fixate on. He never gave up hope that maybe, one day, it would be the arrival that returned their king, if only for a moment.

“At dawn?” Ignis responded in kind, voice incredulous. The mere notion of Noctis being awake now, especially after remembering their struggles on their journey, almost made him laugh. “Unlikely. His majesty may have grown, but I doubt his mannerisms changed.”

Unburdened by the crystal’s prophecy, Ignis had no doubts in his mind that Noctis would sleep well into the day. No matter how old he had come out of the crystal as.

Gladiolus took the opportunity to roll back and push himself up from where he sat on the ground. “Well, guess we gotta do what we always do.”

“Indeed. Though it’s futile.”

Prompto, focused in on ordering the pictures in a way best suited to show Noctis, glanced up to see Gladiolus walk up to the marker. With respect to Lunafreya, he turned to her marker and motioned a quiet apology. If this were any other day, any other world, Prompto could imagine Gladio outside their royal bedroom. Upset the king wasn’t awake for a meeting, Lunafreya opens the door and quietly presses a finger to her lip, though they all know an MT engine couldn’t rattle Noctis awake. Prompto sees them all coming into the room, with hushed voices and Luna pointing to a motionless blob on the bed. He can see Gladio, pulling the covers away with enough force to shift Noctis to the other side of the bed. Ignis is discussing something with Lunafreya and he sees his own hands, shaking Noctis with a laugh, camera in hand to catch the disheveled king in the early morning. He can see it so vividly, it makes his eyes mist up and he shuffles through the images quicker to get rid of the thought.

Gladiolus, who had appropriately offered his respects to the late oracle, began to gently smack his hand against the marker beside that bore Noctis’ name.

“Rise and shine, princess.”

An iron grip on his pictures, he can barely focus on them with images of Duscae campouts coming to mind. He doesn’t know if Gladiolus did it on purpose. He barely recognizes his friend’s scared face as he looks up, fingers visibly shaking as he wipes his eyes. A chocked laugh escapes his lips as he takes his turn at the marker, gently touching the top at first and then rapping his knuckles in quick succession against it.

“Mornin’ buddy.”


End file.
